The Israeli daily Maariv reported on May 30, 2012 Defense Minister
Ehud Barak’s warning that “Unless the Palestinians come back to the
negotiating table Israel may have no choice but to take unilateral
actions to protect its own interests.” Should Israel decide on
unilateral action it must consider annexing the combined elements of
the Allon Plan and Area C of the Oslo Interim Agreement.

A comparison between the map generated by Deputy Prime Minister Yigal
Allon on July 26, 1967, presented to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol for a
settlement with the Palestinians, and the map showing area control
under the Oslo Interim Agreement of September 28, 1995, reveals
significant similarities. There is, however, a difference. The Allon
Plan, promulgated after the Six-Day War, was unilateral, inasmuch as
Israel did not have a partner for peace – albeit the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan was the intended party to the negotiations. The
Oslo Interim Agreement on the other hand was negotiated with the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

The thrust of the Allon Plan was to provide security for Israel. At
the time there were no Israeli settlements to be considered and Allon
was bent on securing for Israel what military strategists called
the “back of the mountain,” and control of the Jordan Valley.
Israeli military strategists agreed that this was needed in order to
control the West Bank militarily. Moreover, this area was mostly
desert and virtually no Palestinians were living there. Under the
plan, Israel would control Palestinian access to Jordan.

Allon designated the Jordan River as Israel’s eastern border, thus
enabling Israeli forces to prevent the armies of Iraq, Jordan and
Syria from coming in from the East, crossing into the West Bank and
attacking Israel’s main population centers. He also proposed the
annexation of areas in the Jerusalem corridor in order to secure the
approaches to the city. During the 1948 War of Independence the
Arabs controlled the approaches to the city and were in command of
the Jerusalem corridor resulting in the besieging of the city and the
near starvation of the city’s Jews.

According to the Allon Plan, the Palestinians would be given control
over three densely populated enclaves: A northern enclave that
included Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, and Ramallah; a southern enclave
that took in Hebron and Bethlehem; and, a special enclave designated
for the Jericho area, which also included a crossing into Jordan.
These enclaves would be connected by specially constructed access
roads.

The principle that guided the late Yigal Allon was “maximum strategic
territories, minimum control over Palestinian population.” Area C of
the Oslo Interim Agreement similarly provides Israel with the same
guiding principle. It takes in approximately 50,000 Palestinians,
who will be given Israeli citizenship should the Israeli government
resolve to annex the area on which Israel has currently both
military/security responsibility as well as civilian control.

Area C consists primarily of sparsely populated desert regions
including the Jordan Valley in the east, and the area southeast of
Hebron, as well as Jewish settlement blocs, Israeli military bases,
and access roads. Area C is the largest of the three areas specified
under the Oslo Interim Agreement.

The Oslo Interim Agreement, much like the Allon Plan, provides for
areas A and B – encompassing the main Palestinian urban centers
(Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Kalkilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and
Jericho) and the surrounding villages — to be administered by the
Palestinians. In area A, Palestinians control both the civil and
security administration, and in area B (Palestinian villages)
Palestinians control the civil administration while Israel controls
security.

Since area B includes the strategic high ground, and mountain ridges,
Israel might be compelled to add portions of area B into Israel.

In a number of ways, the situation on the ground today has not
changed much since Yigal Allon devised his plan in 1967. There is
still no consensus among the Palestinians about the kind of state
they hope for. The only thing that unites the Palestinians is their
hate for Israel, and their wish to eliminate it. In the meantime two
Palestinian regimes exist in mutual distrust and deep animus towards
one another. Hamas in Gaza is Islamist in orientation and it has
declared unambiguously that it will never recognize the Jewish
State. Fatah, the leading party within the PLO that dominates the
West Bank, is largely distrusted by the population in the West Bank,
and if open, fair and democratic elections were to be held in the two
areas, Hamas would probably win a majority because it is less tainted
with corruption and incompetence.

With Gaza depending on Egypt as it did before the Six-Day War of 1967
for electricity and supplies, and the Palestinian Authority counting
on the European Union to pay salaries to 84,500 Palestinian public
service providers and pensioners, a functioning Palestinian State is
not a reality presently or in the near future.

General Aaron Yariv, former chief of Israeli military intelligence,
coined the term “territories for peace,” yet found himself more and
more isolated, when he failed to discern any Palestinian Arab entity
that was ready to trade a real peace in exchange for Israeli
territorial withdrawal.

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have gone
nowhere. At the end of January 2012, Israeli negotiators met in
Jordan with Palestinian Authority officials and discussed border
arrangements. According to a report by Ben Kaspit in the Israeli
daily Maariv, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s personal emissary, declared at the meeting that “Israel
does not demand sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and will be
content with strict security arrangements.” In response, PA
negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Israeli idea unacceptable, and said
that it “exposes Israel’s intention to make the occupation endless.”

The British daily newspaper, The Telegraph, reported on August 2,
2011 that Prime Minister “Netanyahu could countenance, with certain
exceptions, an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 ceasefire lines.”
Netanyahu however decried the fact that the Palestinian leadership
has not prepared its people for peace with Israel.

Saeb Erekat’s familiar response was: “When I hear this from
Netanyahu’s lips, that he will accept an Israeli state along 1967
borders, I will believe it, but what I have read so far is a
masterpiece of PR and linguistics. The Israelis do this very well.”

In the meantime, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority Chairman
has gone to the UN to ask for statehood as a way to avoid
negotiations with the Netanyahu government. Reacting to Netanyahu’s
enlarged coalition government (that now includes Kadima), Abbas
called on it “to expedite a peace accord.” Yet Abbas continues to
demand that Israel accept the indefensible pre-1967 border lines as
the future border for a Palestinian state and release all Arab
security prisoners from Israeli jails, as well as halt construction
in Judea and Samaria for the second time.

Negotiations with the Palestinians have been ongoing in one form or
another since before the Oslo Accords of 1993. Israel has gradually
released its control, withdrawing troops from Palestinian cities and
towns, and withdrawing, as it did, from all of Gaza and forcibly
evacuated 9000 Jewish residents from the area. The Palestinians, for
their part have continued their policy of combining diplomacy and
armed struggle (Fatah doing diplomacy while Hamas is true to the
armed struggle). Anti-Israel incitement continues to permeate
Palestinian society directed by Hamas, Abbas and related groups,
reaching worshippers in the mosques, youngsters in school, as well as
the consumers of the Arabic media.